Andrea Quartarone's debut album "Two Sides of Music", consists of two CDs, each of which has its own title and subtitle: The Power Side - "A New Breath" (Disc 1) and The World Side - "In a Latin Game" (Disc 2). Quartarone is a very masterful guitar player, and his compositions are original and don't contain any obvious influences. There are only two tracks on The Power Side, the music on which is really power and represents a blend of Prog-Metal and Jazz-Fusion of a moderate complexity. All four of the other tracks on Disc 1 are about Classic Jazz-Fusion where highly virtuosi and inventive solos of electric guitar are mostly at the forefront of arrangements, though a role that the parts of piano and, sometimes, those of sax play here is also important. Most of the contents of The World Side are about the same Classic Jazz-Fusion as is presented on the first three tracks of Disc 1, though here, Andrea plays an acoustic, and not electric guitar. And while motifs of the so-called World music in general and those of Latin American music in particular are present on each composition here, only two out of the six pieces that Disc 2 consists of are filled with them. Overall, "Two Sides of Music" is an excellent album, though I can highly recommend it only to the Jazz-Fusion lovers.

Three Japanese musicians have united their efforts under the name of QUI, namely guitarist Takashi Hayashi (who additionally plays synthesizer), bassist Kanji Sugano and drummer Yukihiro Fujimoto. "Prelude" is their debut release. Although the keyboards take commonly a back seat in the overall sound, they are usually lush enough to help the group sound richer than a traditional guitar trio. The recording is made up of eight instrumentals, most of which range from two to four-and-a-half minutes, the only exception to that rule, Astrato Live, being a solid, expanded version of the opening track of the same name, thus raising some doubts about the necessity of its studio counterpart's inclusion. The music is either Allan Holdsworth-style Jazz-Fusion with occasional ambient landscapes or swingy Jazz-Rock. Of course, tunes created without resorting to such conventional methods as those typical of the latter genre basically offer the trio much more room to show, say, their progressive possibilities, and thankfully these are larger in number (no matter that they are derivative). All in all, Qui is a group of technically well-prepared musicians who, however, must perfect their compositional skill to impart more identity to their sound.